Nancy found herself in Mexico to find a beach her mother visited back in 1991. Everything seems normal and well in the beautiful place, until a shark attacks. She might just be 200 yards from the shore, but being all alone she must battle to survive.
This film does not make me want to surf anywhere in all honesty, it does massively put you off even if it does look totally amazing at times! Nancy had journeyed to Mexico to track down a beach that her mother had visited, which immediately makes us think that her mother has passed away. We get small parts of her life pieced together which I think helps explain why she was there in the first place, we have to care at least a little bit about a character in this type of film.
The reason she is alone is because her friend who she was traveling with decided she did not want to go with her, and then even ditches her again over text message (which Nancy does not see) to meet a man from the night before. Pretty horrible thing when you think of what Nancy ended up going through and her friend had no clue and did not even care!?! We never get any answers about that which is a bit of a shame as I would like to think that she felt extremely guilty about not even trying to find her!
Anyway, the pace of the film is good slowly builds up the shark attack and really keeps you on edge as it gets to that point. Some good scenes and survival methods which will make you whence as if it is actually happening to you, good job Nancy was training to be a doctor. I liked the mix of the acting from Lively as well as the occasionally talking to herself and new found friend Steven Seagull. That took the edge off at times and was another good part of the character development.
I did not rush to see this film as soon as it was realised but I did really fancy watching it. Something about a film that mainly has one character certainly does fascinate me, you are consumed by the film and situation the character is in. Wondering in your head what you would try to do in that situation, not that you will ever be in it (hopefully).
My only gripe with the film would be that they made it perfectly clear that Lively as female and that she was wearing a bikini, plenty of close ups and camera angles to show off her body. I doubt that would have happened if it was a male in the leading role. I thought things were supposed to get better in that way for women in film. That was my only issue though in all honesty.
Overall, I found the film to be suspenseful and enjoyable from start to finish. Rather unexpected in all honesty, a strong performance from Blake Lively who is on screen for about 80% of the time on her own. I would recommend this one as I can imagine it isn’t going to be the biggest hit at the box office.
